Hypotheticals
by singingstarryknights
Summary: Nick asks Greg and Sara's daughter for advice concerning a potential Mrs. Stokes. Hypothetically. Number 29 in the Ducks in a Row Series.


Hypotheticals

Nick asks Nora for advice concerning a potential Mrs. Stokes. Hypothetically.

………

"So what do you think?" Nick leaned back against the couch, turning to face the television, and the Houston Astros, phone cradled against his shoulder. Almost two thousand miles away, Nora Sanders sat cross-legged with a bowl of popcorn in her lap, an a dimly lit dormitory, the Astros-Cubs game on mute, thanks to her sleeping roommate. She smiled, tilting her head to the side, resting it on her hand, much like Greg did during his lab days, when he was amused. She turned away from the sleeping bump in the next bed, and faced the window of her dormitory, tossing a kernel of popcorn in her mouth.

"I think you should ask her."

"You don't think that's too forward? Too fast?"

"Have you slept with her?"

"Nora. What kind of guy do you take me for?" Nick winced at her casual tone, and bluntness. He did not want to think about how fast she had grown up. Yesterday he was capping her sippy cup of OJ, today she was giving him sex advice. God he was old.

"Uncle Nicky, there's no point in stressing over whether or not she'll go out with you if you've already slept with her."

"You're right." Nick sighed heavily, reaching over and grabbing the mug of tea he had made, taking a sip. "When did you grow up, Rosie?"

"I'll take that as a 'yes,' then." Nick smiled, staring down into the mug as the Astros took the field for the fourth inning.

"Now you see why I couldn't talk to your mother about this."

"Yeah, she would have told you that you were too old for meaningless sexual relations." She grinned, provoking her favorite uncle.

"Those words out of your mouth are creeping me out."

"I still think you should ask her out."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Nora arched an eyebrow at him, and suddenly he felt like he was looking at Sara. "Was she any good?"

"Eleanora Rosalind Sanders. I'm disgusted." Nick gave her a shocked look. "You sound too much like your father. I don't want to talk about it. Women are too much for me. I don't know how your father faired so well." Nick took a long sip of tea and sighed.

"Got me. He's a huge geek." She turned to the window, watching as people shuffled by on the street below. "Y'all are a bunch of geeks." She spat out, proud of her Texan imitation. Nick rolled his eyes.

"The correct term is 'science nerd,' Eleanora."

"Right."

"Why did you go so far away, Nora?" The hurt in his voice was evident, and she hastily wiped moisture from her eyes.

"I could have gone to Florence, or Greece. I'm only in Chicago, that's not horribly far."

"You have to take a plane there, love, that's far in my book."

"You're going to have to learn to live without me. I'm sure you got along just fine when Mom was busy turning Dad down for dates, and I was only a figment of his dreams. UNLV doesn't have the arts program I wanted. Plus, Mom said the arts department there can't be trusted, and Dad wouldn't let me look at it." Nora squinted at the dry paint under her nails, chipping it away as Nick frowned, remembering the bout they had with the Mathers case and the anniversaries.

"No, you can't study art a UNLV, they're right."

"See, everybody says that, but no one will tell me why."

"Yeah well, forgive us old people for clinging to your innocence."

"Innocence? Most kids are babysat by an elderly woman down the street. I was babysat at the Las Vegas Crime Lab. At night. There's your loss of innocence. I could tell the difference between a dismemberment by a hack saw and a dismemberment by a power saw before I went to kindergarten." Nora lay back against her pillows, rolling over on her stomach, and dipping her hand into the bowl of popcorn that was now beside her. "Your boys are losing." Fortunately the Astros game was against the Cubs, and it was being telecast in Chicago.

"They wouldn't be losing if the damn Cubs didn't kick the shit out of them."

"Tell me how you really feel, Uncle Nicky." There was a pause on the other end of the line, as Todd Walker nabbed a fly ball hit by an Astros batter.

"Dammit. He almost had that."

"Please, infield fly rule. Walker had that as soon as it left the bat." Nora propped her head up on a hand, watching the baseball game on mute.

"I spent eighteen years making you an Astros fan, don't leave me now."

"Give me a little credit, Nicky. I may have Californian DNA, I may have been born and raised in Sin City, but when it comes to baseball, I'm pure Texan."

"That's my girl."

"Any kinky cases last night?"

"Nah, a routine B&E, then a murder-suicide. Nothing to write home about, for me anyways. Your father ended up with a floater, which stank up the whole lab from the morgue, so I'm guessing your house reeks as well."

"When I called this morning, Mom wasn't too pleased, coming home to that after a triple shift."

"Yeah, times like that I'm glad Greg married her." Nora smiled sadly at Nick's attempt at humor. He loved her mother deeply, a special little detail he disclosed to her when she had come to him crying after breaking up with Jack.

"Speaking of marrying, this Grace woman you're asking out, she have potential?"

"I think so."

"Really?" Nora sat up, a broad Sanders grin smeared across her face.

"Really really." Nick smiled at her excitement, propping his socked feet up on his coffee table.

"Whoa, Uncle Nick, this is a big deal."

"Do you think she'd say yes, hypothetically?"

"Uh, have you looked at yourself lately?"

"I know, I'm old-"

"You're my favorite adult that I don't share alleles with, and you're not balding or fat like your competition."

"You've been hanging around with Greg too much."

"Side effect of being his spawn."

"And listening to Hodges too much."

"Side effect of hanging out in the Lab." He smiled, chuckling softly. "Hey."

"What?"

"We were just talking about you asking Grace out, and then all of a sudden you want to marry her."

"Too fast."

"No, you're too old for it to be too fast. Unless you do what Warrick and Tina did. That's too fast."

"You're lucky I like you. I can not believe you called me old."

"I tell it like it is, Nick."

"You got that from your mother."

"Of course." Nora laughed out loud as Nick groaned… the Cubs were absolutely relentless, sending each of Nick's beloved Astros back to the dugout one at a time, frustrated, defeated expressions on their faces. "Your boys are takin' it in the ass, Uncle Nicky."

"Yeah, yeah. They ain't like they used to be, that's for sure. I went to school with a guy who used to play for Houston. He used to bat just like that Derek Lee monster. Amazing."

"You are deliberately avoiding the topic at hand, Uncle Nicky."

"I am not."

"Like hell you are."

"Fine, fine."

"Want to know what I think?"

"Yeah. That's why I called you."

"I think you should marry her. I think you should bring my mother, pick out a classic little ring, slide the box across your kitchen table to her one evening in the not so distant future, let your accent get all thick, and ask her to marry you."

"You've seen way too many sappy romance movies."

"Blame that on Dad. He's a sucker."

"Yeah." Nick shifted, setting his mug on the coffee table. "He's a good man, though." Nick's tone was quiet, and Nora wasn't ignorant to the inaudible sigh of lamentation, almost, in his voice.

"I'm sorry plan A didn't work out for you, Nick." Nora frowned, and Nick smiled at the concern in her words. Plan A, and Sara, had been gone as a possibility for years.

"I'm not. If I had to choose between plan A, and having you, I would choose you over and over again. Plan A was doomed to bust, we both know that." Nora smiled, watching Todd Walker hit his third homerun of the night. "Plus, I have all the benefits of having you around, and I don't have to pay for art school in Chicago. Plan B, in the long run, was better. We're digressing again. Talking about your mother and what could have been is not going to help me with Grace, hypothetically."

"Right. Grace."

"So, Miss Artsy. What kind of ring am I looking for? Hypothetically." Nick sat up on his couch, and hit the mute button on the remote, silencing the announcers and their discussion of the Astros' anahilation.

"Definitely sparkly, you want a cut that really catches the light, where she's singing with Jake every night, you want to have the diamond reflect the stage lights."

"Just watch out for the scintillations, and make sure it's not too shallow, or too deep. No reflection. Hypothetically." Nora smiled as her uncle laughed into the phone, nearly two thousand miles away.

"Alright. Scintillations. Got it." Nick opened his mouth to continue, but paused when his beeper went off shrilly.

"I know that sound."

"Yeah." Nick frowned at the tiny piece of equipment. "You'd think Greg wouldn't need my help after being a level five for 8 years, but no. He needs an extra hand with the floater."

"Tell him I say hi."

"I will. Listen, I'll call you when I have some selections narrowed down, you can give me your artistic opinion."

"Alright. Have fun, Uncle Nicky. I'll beep you with the results of this Astros slaughter."

"Ok. I love you."

"I love you too, Nicky." Nora hung up the phone, laughing to herself. She loved her uncle deeply, but the man was _such_ a nerd. Rolling over on her stomach again, Nora dug her hand in the popcorn bowl, and turned her attention towards the telecast from Wrigley Field. Someone had to watch the Astros, even if the Cubs were using them for batting practice.

…………

A/N: I had originally planned on number 29 being the last of the series… then I decided to find Nicky a girl… so, the cadenza of the series will be pushed back, probably stretching this monster to 35. Thanks for reading!


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